Homeless task force to broaden reach

Aim is to help prevent homelessness

Aug. 25, 2012

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Murfreesboro’s homeless

All households/all People

Total households emergency shelter: 61 with 90 people Total households in transitional shelter: 20 with 32 people Total households unsheltered: 82 with with 96 people Totals: 163 households with 218 people Homeless student counts

Unsheltered students with Rutherford County Schools: 7 Sheltered homeless students with Rutherford County Schools: 619 Unsheltered students with Murfreesboro City Schools: 0 Sheltered students with Murfreesboro City Schools: 75 Total homeless students with public schools in county and city: 694 Murfreesboro households with dependent children

Number of households with emergency shelter: 14 with 43 people Number of households with transitional shelter: 3 with 15 people Number of households unsheltered: 3 with 11 people Total households with dependent children: 20 with 69 people Number of Murfreesboro households without dependent children

Number of households with emergency shelter: 47 for 47 people Number of households with transitional shelter: 17 for 17 people Number of households unsheltered: 79 with 85 people Total number of households without dependent children: 143 with 149 Demographic break down of Murfreesboro homeless

Number of households without children at time of placement: 33, including 11 who were chronically homeless Number of households with children at time of placement: 18, including 2 who were chronically homeless Number of people n households with children at time of placement: 52, including 8 who were chronically homeless Total number served with permanent supported housing: 85, including 19 chronically homeless Source: the Jan. 23, 2012, count by Murfreesboro Mayor’s Homeless Task Force

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MURFREESBORO — The folks serving on the Mayor’s Homeless Task Force hope a new structure and name will lead to more residents teaming up to help.

Much of the the task force discussions can sound bureaucratic with words such as continuum of care, yet the goal of restructuring is to make the group provide a better personal service for the homeless in Murfreesboro and Rutherford County.

“We want people to get involved,” said Scott Foster, a task force member and executive director of the Journey Home, a local charity that provides meals, clothing, job counseling and housing assistance. “This is about inclusion, not exclusion.”

Foster was part of a committee that crafted a new charter for a task force that will be called: “Murfreesboro/Rutherford County Homeless Task Force.”

The task force will review the new charter at its next meeting, scheduled for 2 p.m. Sept. 20 in Room 218 of City Hall and expects to vote on the new charter by October. The document calls for the structure to include five different working groups, including a Consumer Council made up of people who are homeless or have been in the past.

One possible member of the proposed Consumer Council could be James Ramsey, a former homeless man who seeks to help through his “Love of the Lord” Christian ministry.

“I’m trying to put an end to homelessness,” said Ramsey, who was homeless for two years. “I lost my job. My utilities got cut off first. There was nothing I could do. I lived in a barn out in the woods with a pet buzzard.”

Ramsey recently attended a homeless task force meeting at the invitation of nine-year member Brandon Anderson, a homeless outreach coordinator for the Guidance Center.

A subculture exists in the woods where the homeless camps are, said Anderson, who visits the area camps and barns where the homeless are known to stay in seeking to get them help.

He’s seen sometimes 30 or 40 bottles of urine sitting alongside the barns. Some of the homeless drink it to get another high off the methamphetamine that remains in their urine.

“It’s deplorable,” Anderson said.

The proposed Consumer Council’s chair will also serve on the task force executive committee that makes decisions, such as how U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funding will be spent here.

The top committee, for example, hopes to win a $75,000 HUD Emergency Solutions grant by Oct. 1. If awarded, funds will be divided between The Journey Home, Domestic Violence Center, which helps women and children in abusive relationships, and Doors of Hope, which helps females getting out of prison find housing, said John Callow, a task force member and director of the city’s Community Development efforts to use federal grants to help low-income people with housing and other assistance.

Applicants getting HUD money must have 501c3 non-profit tax status with the Internal Revenue Service, and the key to win the money is the capacity to provide services, Callow said.

Mayor Tommy Bragg urged the task force to come up with a new structure and charter and name that spread countywide. The work was done even before HUD came out with new standards for these local task forces, added Callow, noting that the new document aligns with the federal government’s new regulations.

The task force last year picked up $100,000 from HUD that 12 charities shared to provide services for the homeless. Callow expects the next round of this annual funding to come in the spring.

HUD’s new focus is on providing funding that helps prevent people from being homeless, said Callow. No more federal money will be available to build a third shelter to join Room at the Inn and the Salvation Army here in Murfreesboro.

Callow expects the new structure to lead to more people, such as church groups, being part of the restructured task force. Under the old system, the service providers got together to talk about what they were doing, but the task force needs to go beyond that, he said.

“We will be able to broaden the scope and organization,” said Callow, who expects the new structure will be able to reach out more to the community without any misunderstandings.

In addition to the Consumer Council, the other task force groups will be:

• Service Delivery, which consists of representatives of the agencies providing services;

• Project Review and Ranking, which will study applications for HUD grant money and make recommendations to the task force executive committee;

• Membership and Advocacy, which will recruit other organizations to the task force and educate the public about homelessness problems and risks; and

• Planning, which will work on strategic goals and objectives to help the task force meet the needs of the homeless population.